I prototyped and built a fully functional laser tag system. This system was meant to improve on commercially available systems which in my opinion did not provide enough modularity and customizability and thus only appealed to a very specific audience.

Apart from the basic firing and receiving hits features, the main board houses a sound card that can play wave files stored on an sd card, making it easy for users and player to swap sounds without requiring extra tools (apart from a USB sd-card reader). Reloading is done by physically switching magazines instead of by just pressing a button. It also supports radio frequency grenades (grenades that fire off a radio frequency transmission instead of using infrared, to better simulate an explosion radius). Lastly, it uses hit registration: players get a confirmation sound when hitting enemies.

My work on this system:

– Wrote the code for the Microcontroller controlling the whole system (Atmega 168/328, written on AVR Studio using C++)
– Designed the circuit
– Designed the PCB and protoboard prototype
– Built the board, soldered components, tested the board electrically
– Designed the transmission protocol and messages

Protoboard layout

PCB layout, first pass

Protoboard prototype